That is what the Blessed One said. Gratified, the monks delighted at his words.

Note

1. The suttas are inconsistent on the question of whether unbinding counts as a phenomenon (dhamma).Iti 90, among others, states clearly that it is. AN 10:58 calls unbinding the ending of all phenomena. Sn 5:6 quotes the Buddha as calling the attainment of the goal the transcending of all phenomena, just as Sn 4:6 and Sn 4:10 state that the arahant has transcended dispassion, said to be the highest phenomenon. If the former definition applies here, unbinding would be not-self. If the latter, the word phenomenon (as more inclusive than fabrication) would apply to the non-returner’s experience of the deathless (see AN 9:36). The arahant’s experience of unbinding would be neither self nor not-self, as it lies beyond all designations (see DN 15). Even the arahant, at that point, would be undefined, as beings are defined by their attachments, whereas there are no attachments by which an arahant could be defined as existing, not existing, both, or neither (SN 23:2).